between horror and disbelief.
If Lukasz noticed, then he didn’t care. He turned to Ren.
“Just listen,” she said. “I can explain.”
She spared the details. When she finished, he put his hands in his pockets. Then he looked at her, rubbed his chin. She realized he looked just like he had the day they’d met.
He repeated, for the third time:
“What?”
“My God,” said Queen Dagmara. “What a remarkable vocabulary.”
“Are you serious?” he demanded. He looked over Ren’s shoulder at the queen, and his accent was thick with rage. “What kind of queen are you? Do you realize what you’ve put this kingdom through?” He took a step forward. Ren put a warning hand on his chest, but he pushed it away. “What about your daughter? You left her behind in a world full of monsters—”
“She was protected,” said the queen. Her expression was stone.
“She was alone!” roared Lukasz.
“Don’t talk to me like that, boy,” said the queen coldly. “Your family falls under my kingdom’s purview. You are my subject.”
“Bullshit,” spat Lukasz.
“Oh my God, Lukasz,” growled Ren. “That’s the queen.”
Lukasz rounded on her.
“No. You’re the queen.” Ren had never seen him so angry, and it scared her. “This woman abandoned her family. She left you with the likes of the Leszy and the Baba Jaga. And if those lynxes hadn’t found you . . . And you know what?” He turned once more to the queen. “While you were busy with your pet Dragon, we were looking for you. Your husband died for you. And my father and mother. And my brothers. How did you feel, watching us all die at the foot of your precious Mountain?” There was a snarl in his voice that Ren had never heard, and it was climbing his face. Getting into his eyes. He looked demonic. “All I had in this world were my brothers. And they died, one by one, coming for you. To help you. Eight of my brothers are dead because of you.”
They would never know what the queen had to say to all this. Because at that moment, a musical voice cut across the rain and the glass and the golden trees.
A voice that Ren knew all too well.
“Actually,” said Koszmar. “Nine.”
54
REN WATCHED, SUSPENDED IN DISBELIEF, as Koszmar crossed the glass mountaintop. He had changed. It was like she was looking at him through warped glass. Strangely distorted. Still familiar, not quite right.
For one thing, he was taller. His limbs were oddly graceful, and he took long easy strides, almost unnaturally surefooted on the treacherous glass. A glittering, slightly reddish beard wreathed his thin jaws, ran smoothly down his throat. His clothes were torn, braid hanging off his coat like sinews. His greatcoat was shiny with water, and the vila-hair plume of his dented helmet was stained red. His eyes were silver-blue, with the black pupils of an animal.
“Kosz.” Lukasz looked momentarily relieved. “Kosz, thank God, you’re alive—”
He froze, and Ren knew he was processing what Koszmar had said.
Actually. Nine.
Ren pushed the queen behind her and Lukasz. Ensured her mother was protected. Even though Ren knew, instinctively and sickeningly, that Koszmar was after a different queen.
“Kosz,” she pleaded. “Please. You have to understand—”
Koszmar smiled. There was a broken-off pipe in his mouth, and now he reached up and flung it away. More glittering red fur covered the backs of his hands; the long fingers were twisted into claws. He smiled, white teeth behind pale golden lips. He uncurled his claws.
Koszmar didn’t have to shout. His voice carried over the torrent.
“I understand perfectly,” he said. “You little monster.”
The silver eyes found her, gleaming with hunger. This was not the Koszmar she had once known. This was not the same man who had lain by a fire and told her about his home. This was not the man who had chosen death over monstrosity. This was not the man who had shot himself to save her and Lukasz.
This was a strzygoń.
“Koszmar,” she whispered. “Please. I know you’re in there. Somewhere. You’re a good person, Koszmar. You’re my friend.”
Ren felt her heart break.
“Friend?” repeated the thing wearing Koszmar’s skin. “Friend? You left me there. You decided your precious Dragon was worth more than me. You—” He rounded on Lukasz. “You could have saved me. But you chose her, when I was dying.”
In that moment, ragged and unshaven with his black hair glued to the back of his neck in the driving rain, Lukasz had never looked more like a wolf. He spoke in a low voice that